


broken as it is

by theidlerwheel



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 12:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theidlerwheel/pseuds/theidlerwheel
Summary: Set just after CYM.Blue and Yellow take the chance to talk about White's attack.
Relationships: Blue Diamond/Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	broken as it is

_Her voice was as sullen as the expression on her young face. ‘I’m not stupid,’ Pink muttered under her breath, ostensibly to herself, but it was projected loudly enough that the whole garden could have heard. _

_Blue turned abruptly in mid-lecture, the sole audience to her outburst. ‘I beg your pardon?’_

_Pink looked down at her closed fists, nails digging into the palms of her hands. _

_‘You give me the smaller tasks because you think I’m not good enough. You think I’ll never be like you or Yellow.’ _

_‘Little one...’ Blue swallowed thickly, the words catching in her throat. She dropped gently to her knees, reaching out for the younger Diamond, her Pink. Blue placed her hand on the side of her face in an effort to reassure her, but Pink tore away from the touch as if it were diseased. She felt a hot rage bubbling up inside of her, ready for everything to spill out as one terrible, devastating force._

_‘Don’t touch me. You’re always so cold.’_

_‘Oh...’ Blue’s long face began to crumple, her fingers recoiling slightly as Pink’s words hung there in the air, the gap between the two diamonds widening with every second they remained silent. Pink immediately wished with all her heart that she could take it all back, fold the words up like paper and stuff them inside her mouth. But the damage was done, and she felt the old familiar sting of Blue’s tears welling up behind her eyes. _

‘It was true, wasn’t it?’ said Blue.

‘Mm?’ Yellow looked up from her crouched position, halfway through reluctantly swiping a hand down a horribly dusty wall. The other was occupied by a small datapad, whirring and chirruping with statistical data. Thousands of messages flitted back and forth across the screen, anxiously crying out for a response. 

They hadn’t visited the prison tower since... well. At first Blue had begged Yellow not to go, that it was too soon, but go they did. And together they had begun to make plans of the structure that would eventually take the tower’s place. 

Too much had happened here, Blue had said, and Yellow was inclined to agree.

Yellow, who of course had taken charge in overseeing the demolition process, was by now well accustomed to Blue simply sitting in silence with her during their duties, and often they fell into a pleasant quietude. It was clear to her now, however, that Blue had been turning something over in her mind the moment they had stepped inside the chamber.

‘What White said. It was true.’ 

Yellow rose to her feet, brushing down her coat in a futile attempt to remove some of the dust. She made an uncomfortable sound that Blue could not quite place. It was a strange, wavering sigh that hovered neatly between weariness and melancholy. In what could only be described as shame, the elder diamond looked towards the small window that was stationed directly opposite the door, and she discarded her datapad to the side with a small thunk. They paused, staring at anything but each other. 

‘You could hear her,’ said Yellow quietly, her back still turned from Blue. It came out as a statement of fact rather than a question. The datapad was still faintly churning out noises in the far corner, but it remained ignored.

Blue nodded, her gaze still fixed to the floor. ‘I don’t know how much you remember,’ she whispered, her voice practically skeletal. ‘But I can hear her now, too. Like fingernails scratching and tapping inside my head. I wanted to fight back, Yellow, I really did, but I--’

‘Couldn’t,’ Yellow murmured to no-one in particular, barely aware she had finished Blue’s sentence. She turned towards her companion. Something about Blue seemed so small, now. Fragile. It reminded her of the early days, before Pink, when Blue would cower and fret constantly whenever they were in White’s presence. It was unsurprising; White abhorred Blue’s unstable temperament, often treating her as if she were closer to an off-colour rather than a diamond.

Blue placed her hands gingerly on the gem residing in her chest. She felt the one question she had been longing to ask burning inside her, and before she knew it, she found it had been spoken aloud.

‘She really did think we were defective, didn’t she?’ 

Yellow shifted uncomfortably on her feet, remaining silent. They loved Steven, how he had pushed so hard for change, for their happiness, but deep down a nagging voice told them that they had still failed the Empire, and they had failed White Diamond. Punishment for stepping out of line was only to be expected. Yellow thought back to the thousands of times they had been punished for their perceived incompetence, how their minds had been forced open to White at her whim, and she mentally cursed herself for ever thinking that she would have welcomed their suggestions with open arms.

She strode past Blue over to the window, pretending that she had meant to peer at something outside. By a human’s account it would have been late evening, a time for winding down and preparing for rest, but on Homeworld there was no sun to set, and no rest to be taken. The sky blazed with a garish purple light from the metropolis below, reflecting and refracting off the city’s towering formations. To Yellow this had once seemed beautiful, the height of magnificence. The gem in the crown of their glorious Empire. She closed her eyes and sighed, losing herself in the soft thrums and whistles of the convoy ships moving over their heads, and wondered what the point of all of it had been. Whether Pink felt the same as they did, as she had sat there in tears, trapped and ignored by the very people who were supposed to love her the most. 

Blue’s voice broke through the memory, jolting Yellow from her stupor. ‘I remember something else, though.’ 

‘Something else?’ 

Yellow had turned, echoing Blue’s words slowly as if the syllables themselves were weighted to her tongue.

‘She’s so strong, but so weak when it comes to Blue,’ the other diamond recounted carefully, meeting Yellow’s eyes for the first time. ‘That’s what she said.’

A fierce streak of amber flooded Yellow’s face and she knitted her brows together, furious at being exposed so brutally. She felt like she had been skinned raw, nerves turned inside out, and if she had had any blood it would have drained right out of her. She had seen Blue during her meltdowns, during the times she had screeched out orders to shatter insubordinates in the middle of holding court, but in this moment nothing was more paralysing than the beautifully calm, composed being standing in front of her. The space between them seemed to shrink, and the air grew blank and still.

‘She was mistaken about that too, I expect,’ Blue continued, seemingly oblivious to Yellow’s internal anguish. She took Yellow’s hand in her own and slowly removed the glove enveloping it. Yellow grit her teeth, accepting the gesture reluctantly, allowing Blue to caress the calloused skin gently with her thumb, interlocking their fingers together.

‘Of course she was wrong,’ said Yellow bitterly, still looking at the floor. 

A pause.

‘I see,’ came Blue’s flat response. The grip loosened, her hand becoming slack and dead against Yellow’s. She began to pull away but Yellow stopped her, holding Blue’s thin wrist delicately, desperately.

‘No,’ she spoke, louder now, trying to iron out the wavering in her voice. ‘She was wrong because you don’t weaken me. You never have.’

Blue simply stared at her.

Yellow took a breath, one she hoped Blue hadn’t noticed too much, and continued. ‘I tried so hard, but nothing worked. I fought, colonised, conquered, and it was never enough. If you hadn’t been there, if we hadn’t been together...’ she trailed off, her mouth hanging open slightly in a daze. She felt her face darken further, and it must have become painfully obvious to Blue that for once in her life, Yellow was utterly lost for words. Blue waited patiently, her arm slipping gently out of Yellow’s grasp to hold her once again.

‘I really thought she was going to kill us.’ Tears welled in Yellow’s eyes, spilling over onto already shining cheeks, and a choked sob escaped from her lungs. Blue merely pulled her closer, planting a soft kiss on her forehead. Yellow leaned in to the touch, burying herself in a mass of soft, silvery hair.

‘Hush now,’ Blue murmured softly, stroking the back of her neck. ‘No more crying.’ 

The irony of her words were not lost on either of them. 

‘How are we going to make this right?’ came Yellow’s muffled question, still nested in the curve of Blue’s neck.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Blue, looking up towards the window. There was the sky, same as ever, save for one small thing. Somewhere out there, far, far beyond her line of sight, beyond the dust clouds of Homeworld and a thousand colonised planets, was the home of a small boy, one who through no fault of his own had become part of their bruised and broken family. They owed it to him, Blue thought, to try. 

They stood there for a while holding each other, heads pressed together, gem against gem, until the incessant noise of the datapad could be dismissed no longer. 

They would resume their plans another day.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know I just needed this out! Thanks for reading.


End file.
